%%%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them. %%* AngstWhatAngst: Despite the discrimination Neeshka faces due to her tiefling nature, she's very upbeat and probably the most laid-back party member in the original campaign.* BaseBreakingCharacter: Some view Casavir as a cool, somewhat suave KnightInSourArmour who makes for a [[SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan touching]] LoveInterest. Others see him as dull and rather bland, and many, many women wish his romance had not received priority over that of Bishop. There's also a middle ground.* CanonFodder: The Knight-Captain's parentage. We know some details about KC's mother Esmerelle, that she was [[RetiredBadass an ex-adventurer]] and that Daeghun Farlong was one of her companions, but the KC's father never comes up.* CatharsisFactor:** After all his transgressions, after all his smug, self-satisfied taunting, the player finally gets to [[spoiler:kill Black Garius off for real]] -- and boy howdy is it satisfying.** Same goes for [[spoiler:killing Qara. After having to put up with her idiocy, arrogance and verbal abuse, players were all too glad to see her make FaceHeelTurn. This allow you to beat her to death along with the combine might of ''all nine party members''.]]* ClicheStorm: It's a game where the main character is an orphan who grew up in a small town, which is attacked near the beginning of the game, has a villain named [[ObviouslyEvil The King of Shadows]], and later becomes a quest for a mystical InfinityPlusOneSword.* CompleteMonster: [[OurLichesAreDifferent Black Garius]], the self-proclaimed "Master of the Fifth Tower," is the leader of the [[ReligionOfEvil Cult of Shadow]], a group of necromancers that plunders grave sites and old battle sites for corpses to their army and tries to free the [[BigBad King of Shadows]]. Or so it seems. In reality, [[TheStarscream he wants to exploit the King for power]], something he can't get enough of; [[BadBoss treats his subordinates as expendable pawns]] (even his own [[TheDragon Dragon]] admits this if you spare her after his death) and was ready to [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness wipe out the remaining cultists as soon as he was done with the ritual to bind the King]]. However, [[EvilIsNotAToy the ritual is botched and he dies]], only to [[CameBackWrong be revived]] as a [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Shadow Reaver]], a slave to the King. Even after that, he's perfectly fine with his state, as he has more magical powers than he had in life. His greatest atrocity in the game was ordering the massacre of a peaceful village in order to {{Frame|Up}} the PlayerCharacter, who had thwarted his efforts. If you prove yourself innocent in the court, he shows no regret over the people that died, but is enraged over his minions for [[YouHaveFailedMe failing him]] and kills Lorne on the spot if you didn't do it yourself. Garius was all in all a [[SmugSnake smug]], power-hungry backstabber with no redeeming features whatsoever.* CrazyAwesome: Khelgar considers using his weapons to be unfair. ** ''Ribsmasher! [[VerbalTic HA!]]''* CrowningMusicOfAwesome:** An in-story example: arguing your defense at trial. In song. Flusters the prosecutor and wins you the crowd.** [[http://youtu.be/ulueUlCPjvs "Approaching the Spirit Army"]] from the ''Mask'' soundtrack.* DracoInLeatherPants: Bishop, Bishop, ''Bishop.'' Doesn't matter that the guy is basically evil to the core and a bit of a jerk besides; he's MrFanservice through and through and that's what people remember him for.* EnsembleDarkhorse:** The extremely AffablyEvil baatezu Mephasm.** Slaan, the DualWielding lizardfolk barbarian who briefly joins for Highcliff - partly for being the only recruitable barbarian, and partly for making a better first impression than most of the actual main party members, to the point where more than a few wish he'd been a main character.** Pretty much nobody in the fandom will admit to hating Kistrel. It's a giant spider! And it's friendly!* FanPreferredCouple:** Male Knight Captain/Neeshka and Female Knight Captain/Bishop or Sand. Neeshka was an option but cut due to time; even so, the leftovers have several flirtatious lines that, to some people, flow better than the sudden confessions of [[spoiler:stalking and JailbaitWait]] from the actual love interest. This hit such a level that one of the developers tried to defend the game's OfficialCouple, claiming that Neeshka was never intended to be anyone's love interest, and that the devs didn't understand nor appreciate the fans' fervor along such lines. [[ForegoneConclusion No one believed a word of it.]]** The male PC and Shandra Jerro, which may have been shaped to look like an OfficialCouple [[spoiler:before Shandra's horrible death]].** Female Knight Captain/Bishop, by a slight majority. The fact that Casavir's romance may come across as a poor substitute left some fans a little bitter.* IronWoobie: When asked about her past, Neeshka rattles off an incredibly depressing backstory. She doesn't care, though -- she's just happy that someone's taking an interest.* MagnificentBastard: Mephasm, who never overtly does anything evil by his own will in the story, yet nobody has the slightest doubt that he's as bad as they come.* MoralEventHorizon:** Evil [=PCs=] are offered a chance to cross it at the end, [[spoiler:slaughtering all your former party members before taking Garius' place at the head of the King of Shadows' army.]]** [[spoiler:Ammon Jerro freely admits he's crossed it, and doesn't look back unless the player has high influence with him. He doesn't try to justify the morality of it, simply saying that he tried more polite options first to no gain, and that he'll accept the fate he's earned.]]** Black Garius ordering the massacre of [[spoiler:Ember]] to the last man, woman, child and even pet, except for one witness, solely for the purpose of framing the PlayerCharacter in the hopes of getting rid of him/her, and showing no regret for it.* MostAnnoyingSound:** The various "I can't carry any more" soundbites get real old, real fast. Characters complain whenever they pass certain encumbrance thresholds, which are very low for most magic users -- and unfortunately, magic users tend to be the ones who can identify magic items, which need to be in the identifier's inventory, and are often quite heavy.--> '''Sand''': "I am ''not'' a pack mule and I can't move carrying all this stuff!"** "Sure, I can do that! ...All done!" is heard quite a bit in dungeons. Since interacting with the environment with a skill never takes more than a few seconds, and traps and treasure chests are often clustered together, the barks are played to annoyance.** "[[SmallNameBigEgo I THINK IT IS TIME EVERYONE MARCH BEHIND ME, YOUR NEW GL-L-LORIOUS LEADER]]!"** Grobnar's battle cries. Tolerating his voice is hard enough when he's not squealing at you.** The air elemental's constant wind blowing sound its making, even when standing still.** The Magic Circle against Alignment spell. Whenever someone enters or exits it, it has to make a damn bell-like sound. Now imagine a whole party of six adventurers going in and out of the circle constantly, because no one has [[ArtificialStupidity a decent pathfinding]]* {{Narm}}: Half of the voiced villains and baddies are trying way too hard to sound evil.* PlayerPunch: [[spoiler:Shandra's death. She was just so... likeable.]]* ThatOneLevel:** The final area can be this to some, since it's filled with a large number of powerful undead and golems, and also adds a high chance of being attacked while resting, unlike with any other dungeon in the game. It's also filled with traps, which can make things difficult since it's the point where the party is unlikely to have a rogue unless the player character is one.** The Orc Caves. They're full of hidden traps, [[FakeLongevity seem to go on forever]] and mostly contain hordes of similar groups of orcs that can can quickly overwhelm you, with some groups spawning at trigger points, meaning you could be dealing with more than one group if you're not mindful of where you step. The fact that Casavir muscles his way into the party at this juncture really doesn't help matters.** The entirety of Moire's quest in the Docks, if you choose to side with her instead of the City Watch. You have to swim through hordes of rival thugs (that love to BackStab you) to get to the guardposts of the city guard and try to get them on your side. And fight them if you fail. After that, and a brief filler mission, you have to escort a wagon through a long street chock full of rival thugs (So much for Moire ruling over the docks) and heavily armored city guards, [[GangUpOnTheHuman which will eagerly team up on you]]. After a forced ambush by the thugs (SoMuchForStealth), you arrive on the warehouse only to find the City Guard waiting for you inside, complete with clerics that love to curse and lower your stats for the remainder of the scenario, as this last area has no exit.* TheScrappy: ** Qara, for being a {{pyromaniac}} sorceress with an [[SmallNameBigEgo overinflated sense of importance]] and a tendency to destroy loot chests with her splash damage. Her rivalry with fan favorite Sand doesn't help matters, and the fact that she is ''so'' ''frickin'' petty really annoys some players. ** Grobnar, for being an annoying {{cloudcuckoolander}} [[SpoonyBard with little combat potential]]. Many players would love to be able to have Qara set him on fire when he joins up. Although some of his dialog is admittedly pretty funny.* ScrappyMechanic:** Crafting in the OC. You need to fulfill several requirements to craft or enchant items. It's very difficult and frustrating to keep track of the needed components and spells levels as you need to navigate several windows (inventory, recipe books, spellbooks, character sheet, etc) and there's no check list.** Whenever you enter conversation mode, the game isn't paused which means there's a good chance your buffs will expire. Pretty annoying if you're dealing with lots of dialogues and combat will occur after talking is done.* SpecialEffectFailure:** When moving in the battlefield, animation will sometime not trigger properly. Characters and monsters will glide like chess pieces rather than walking.** When making 360 degrees turns, monsters and characters will sometime awkwardly go in their "walking forward animation" and spin around.** Parries, cleaves and attack of opportunities do not have any animation. A colored line will show-up and a floating text will display what the character have just done. A fan-made script can partially fix this.** When a character is knocked down, he will fly up unrealistically in the air before falling down.* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: ** Qara's conflict with [[KnightTemplarParent Jochris]] drops off and is never mentioned again. In the Orc Caves she can discover the bodies of her fellow students, even some she almost liked, being raised as experimental zombie mages and vow to fight and destroy the one who did that to them, but somehow that ends up as a BizarroEpisode in an otherwise unflattering career. She remains the same {{Static Character}} she starts out as and doesn't even get a decent personal questline to make up for it. Maybe people wouldn't hate her so much if they had found a way to give her more closure or character growth?*** Quite a bit of content for her was cut. This also created the bizarre result in the endgame where if she stays loyal to you Sand will inexplicably change sides because he thinks she's ''more dangerous than the King of Shadows''.** Speaking of the orcs, their involvement in the plot is pointless and generic. They and Casavir are reduced to a cliched LawfulGood vs. ChaoticEvil conflict where the orcs are waging war over land, resources or just for the hell of it (no one really knows why) and Casavir is trying to stop them because of his ChronicHeroSyndrome. Even the "Katalmach" label of "[[HeWhoFightsMonsters one who loses himself in battle]]" is misplaced -- it turns out, Casavir only got involved out of compassion and generic good-guy-ness, and even has it in his heart to feel pity for the orcs. And when it's over, the whole thing is referenced again only once -- during the player's trial in Act II as an example of their good character. The whole affair reeks of {{padding}} and undeveloped opportunities.* TooCoolToLive:** [[spoiler:Shandra]] stands out among a party otherwise exclusively made up of very unoriginal characters as a DeadpanSnarker (not unlike [[VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic Jolee Bindo]] for that matter) and master of WhoWritesThisCrap and dies. The setting allows resurrection easily and unlike the other time an ally dies, you are ''easily'' of sufficient level and wealth to bring her back.** Possibly justified by the setting requirements for resurrection. In 3.5 D&D, nobody can be raised from the dead against their will, and [[spoiler: Shandra was only ever a reluctant participant in the storyline. There's also a possibility someone was preventing her from coming back -- Shandra's final acts did, after all, involve at least one bargain with a devil.]]* UglyCute: Kistrel, a GentleGiant ''[[GiantSpider spider]]'' that you can befriend and adopt as a pet. * WhatAnIdiot: Turning against the player because you think Qara is a bigger threat to the world than the army of shadow-infused undead currently in the process of destroying it? Not your brightest moment, Sand.

!!''Mask of the Betrayer''

* AlasPoorScrappy:** [[spoiler:Ammon Jerro tells you Grobnar attempted to save a 12 foot [[MadeOfIron Blade Golem]] by blocking a pillar with his frail gnome body at the end of the OC.]]** If Qara was on your side in the final battle of the original game, [[spoiler:she gets her head crushed in by a rock. Sand lives by transforming himself into an Iron Golem.]]* EvenBetterSequel: The original campaign is a fun romp through the Sword Coast, but it's relatively linear and generally ran on clichés (intentional or not). ''Mask of the Betrayer'' on the other hand, had a smaller band of more developed characters, a much better overarching story, and such complicated literary devices as symbolism and foreshadowing.* GrowingTheBeard: It is said that ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2'' is only the prologue to this story.* InternetBackdraft: The Wall of the Faithless. It's a combination of Edition Wars and Religious Wars rolled into one - mentioning it anywhere will cause a fight to break out. It doesn't help that it disappeared from the setting without explanation shortly after the game came out.* MoralEventHorizon: [[spoiler:The player]] leading several innocent people, [[spoiler:including Anya]], to a gruesome death at the hands of spirit eater-worshipping uthraki.** Alternately, [[spoiler:forcing the Spirit-Eater Curse to devour the Red Woman, effectively rendering Akachi's sacrifice completely moot]].** Myrkul was evil long before creating the Wall of the Faithless and the Sprit Eater Curse, but those two acts were enough to take him from "acceptable levels of evil" to "completely, utterly, irredeemably evil". * PlayerPunch: More like Player Punch in Hindsight, but [[spoiler: Myrkul's back in 5E. Sorry.]]

!!''Storm of Zehir''

* CrazyAwesome: Ribsmasher is back, and continues to practice his ribsmashing-focused fighting style.* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: ''Storm of Zehir'' has some excellent music. The brass in the main menu theme is particularly good.* FanonDiscontinuity: A mild case, but people who spared Okku, romanced a companion, or got the Bind/Devour endings choose to disregard the presence of One-of-Many and Khelgar's claim that the Knight-Captain returned to Crossroad Keep.

!!''Mysteries of Westgate''

* GoodBadBugs: Just before entering Orbakh's Inner Sanctum, you can just leave the winery and go to the Undergate and receive XP everytime you enter it.